Health care in Prince County on Prince Edward Island shifted from the home to the hospital on one fall day in 1912.
A century later the Prince County Hospital and the School of Nursing, which was the lifeblood of its nursing workforce until it was phased out in 1971, were the memorable topics on the minds of people at an informal gathering at Eptek Art and Culture Centre leading up to an official history circle hosted by the Summerside and Area Historical Society.
"Before that (time) in western P.E.I. you had home birth, home death, you had the whole thing (pretty much) being done at home," says Wayne Wright, co-author with Katherine Dewar of the book, This Caring Place: The History of the Prince County Hospital and School of Nursing.
"The country doctors would make their rounds on the horse and sleigh or horse and wagon throughout the year or you would go to the doctor's offices in certain towns . . . ," he adds.
"If you had a serious problem you'd get on the old railway or on the horse and wagon or horse and sleigh and have a bone shaking ride to Charlottetown to see the doctors there (at either the Prince Edward Island or Charlottetown hospitals)."
Dr. Alec McNeill and Dr. John McNeill, who were brothers, got the P.C. Hospital momentum going in 1909.
"They just saw the crying need for a roof over their head when they were operating and the crying need for Summerside perhaps to pull up its socks and take its place as the second (largest community) here on the Island," Wright says.
"When this particular eureka moment happened among these two doctors the town's business leaders, movers and shakers said, 'Let's build a hospital that would be worthy of Summerside.' "
Also part of that plan was to include a training school for nurses.
A year before the hospital opened its doors to its first patient in 1912, a band of women, who would soon be known as the Ladies Aid of the Prince County Hospital, was hard at work raising funds to purchase equipment.
"These auxiliaries existed all over Prince County. From Kensington to Alberton, there would be these little auxiliaries and everybody would be raising money, having rummage sales, bake sales, having moonlight cruises on the local Empress cruiser — just every kind of trick in the book to raise money . . . ," Wright says.
"So $7,575 was raised and that was an awful lot of money in those days when people would work all day long, if they were lucky, for $1."
The initial plan was to use the existing Russ Hotel on Central Street, but renovations were deemed too costly.
"So (the community, which involved the whole of Prince County) said, 'Let's demolish the old hotel . . . and with the money that we've raised and great donations from the local business community let's build this hospital right here on our own,' " Wright says.
"That certainly was the tradition here on the Island. If you needed hockey rink, a church or anything, it was built locally. The government wasn't really part of the act. In fact, the whole budget for health care on the Island around 1912 would be $300."
The P.C. Hospital opened for patients on Sept. 19, 1912.
However, two days before that, the board of trustees had a meeting and realized that though it was about ready to open there were no nurses.
They enlisted the help of Grace Beattie, a Summerside nurse who had developed schools of nursing in the United States and who was back in her hometown recovering from a difficult illness.
"They detailed Dr. Alec MacNeill to go talk to her and tell her that it was her duty to be the matron and establish the (Prince County) School of Nursing. . . . 'And by the way' he said, 'the hospital opens in two days.' So she had two days to organize the hospital and the wards and, of course, she had no other nurses," Dewar says.
The first student, Ann Pillman from Traveller Rest, arrived on Sept. 26.
"Within four months they had five student nurses, but two resigned. So, in 1915, the first graduating class had three graduate nurses. Hospitals were totally staffed by student nurses in those days," Dewar adds.
"And those students worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week. They had a couple of hours off during the day. Got a vacation once a year. They worked very hard and they made $6 a month."
The 20-bed facility featured a sophisticated interior design with a ward and an operating room space, a staff-operated elevator and an X-ray unit.
Initially, the nurses lived in the hospital, but they eventually moved into the house across the street.
"They had to sign in and out. They weren't allowed out very much. There were very tight controls over them," Dewar says.
The nurses faced many challenges early on; in fact when Beattie set up the hospital she actually had to make due with no hot water for some time.
"They had an elevator, but they weren't allowed to use it because it used electricity, so they could only use it in emergencies. So if the food was cooked on the lower level the nurses had to carry the trays and everything up to the second and third levels," Dewar says.
"But not only the nurses cooked the food. They fed the patients. They cleaned the wards. They cleaned the floors. They made the beds. They even had to stoke the furnace. There was nobody there. These hospitals were totally staffed by student nurses."
This changed with time, but one thing that was slow to change was the fact that for a woman to be a nurse she could not be married. That rule didn't change until the 1960s.
With the onset of the baby boom era in the late 1940s, the first P.C. Hospital was swamped.
"The wards were filled. The hallways were filled. So they needed a bigger and better hospital," Wright says.
The second P.C. Hospital was built on Beattie Avenue in 1951 and for its day was, as Wright wrote in This Caring Place, "the undisputed queen of Island health-care facilities" and included things like an air-conditioned nursery and operating rooms, soundproof hallways and an emergency power plant capable of taking over the entire hospital workload in the event of a blackout.
"It truly was a gem. It was the best hospital on the Island in 1951 without a doubt," he adds.
When the second P.C. Hospital was built, a new nurses' residence was built next door. That hospital was eventually expanded from an L-shaped hospital to an H-shaped building.
The Island's three schools of nursing were phased out in 1971. In 1969, the new Prince Edward Island School of Nursing had been established in Charlottetown to replace the three former schools. That program ceased with the graduation of the final class of students in June 1994.
The hospital on Beattie Street was replaced in 2004 by the present 110-bed facility located on a 27-acre property on Roy Boates Avenue in the city's north end. It was the first hospital on P.E.I. to offer an ambulatory care unit.
Health care in Prince County on Prince Edward Island shifted from the home to the hospital on one fall day in 1912.
A century later the Prince County Hospital and the School of Nursing, which was the lifeblood of its nursing workforce until it was phased out in 1971, were the memorable topics on the minds of people at an informal gathering at Eptek Art and Culture Centre leading up to an official history circle hosted by the Summerside and Area Historical Society.
"Before that (time) in western P.E.I. you had home birth, home death, you had the whole thing (pretty much) being done at home," says Wayne Wright, co-author with Katherine Dewar of the book, This Caring Place: The History of the Prince County Hospital and School of Nursing.
"The country doctors would make their rounds on the horse and sleigh or horse and wagon throughout the year or you would go to the doctor's offices in certain towns . . . ," he adds.
"If you had a serious problem you'd get on the old railway or on the horse and wagon or horse and sleigh and have a bone shaking ride to Charlottetown to see the doctors there (at either the Prince Edward Island or Charlottetown hospitals)."
Dr. Alec McNeill and Dr. John McNeill, who were brothers, got the P.C. Hospital momentum going in 1909.
"They just saw the crying need for a roof over their head when they were operating and the crying need for Summerside perhaps to pull up its socks and take its place as the second (largest community) here on the Island," Wright says.
"When this particular eureka moment happened among these two doctors the town's business leaders, movers and shakers said, 'Let's build a hospital that would be worthy of Summerside.' "
Also part of that plan was to include a training school for nurses.
A year before the hospital opened its doors to its first patient in 1912, a band of women, who would soon be known as the Ladies Aid of the Prince County Hospital, was hard at work raising funds to purchase equipment.
"These auxiliaries existed all over Prince County. From Kensington to Alberton, there would be these little auxiliaries and everybody would be raising money, having rummage sales, bake sales, having moonlight cruises on the local Empress cruiser — just every kind of trick in the book to raise money . . . ," Wright says.
"So $7,575 was raised and that was an awful lot of money in those days when people would work all day long, if they were lucky, for $1."
The initial plan was to use the existing Russ Hotel on Central Street, but renovations were deemed too costly.
"So (the community, which involved the whole of Prince County) said, 'Let's demolish the old hotel . . . and with the money that we've raised and great donations from the local business community let's build this hospital right here on our own,' " Wright says.
"That certainly was the tradition here on the Island. If you needed hockey rink, a church or anything, it was built locally. The government wasn't really part of the act. In fact, the whole budget for health care on the Island around 1912 would be $300."
The P.C. Hospital opened for patients on Sept. 19, 1912.
However, two days before that, the board of trustees had a meeting and realized that though it was about ready to open there were no nurses.
They enlisted the help of Grace Beattie, a Summerside nurse who had developed schools of nursing in the United States and who was back in her hometown recovering from a difficult illness.
"They detailed Dr. Alec MacNeill to go talk to her and tell her that it was her duty to be the matron and establish the (Prince County) School of Nursing. . . . 'And by the way' he said, 'the hospital opens in two days.' So she had two days to organize the hospital and the wards and, of course, she had no other nurses," Dewar says.
The first student, Ann Pillman from Traveller Rest, arrived on Sept. 26.
"Within four months they had five student nurses, but two resigned. So, in 1915, the first graduating class had three graduate nurses. Hospitals were totally staffed by student nurses in those days," Dewar adds.
"And those students worked 12 hours a day, seven days a week. They had a couple of hours off during the day. Got a vacation once a year. They worked very hard and they made $6 a month."
The 20-bed facility featured a sophisticated interior design with a ward and an operating room space, a staff-operated elevator and an X-ray unit.
Initially, the nurses lived in the hospital, but they eventually moved into the house across the street.
"They had to sign in and out. They weren't allowed out very much. There were very tight controls over them," Dewar says.
The nurses faced many challenges early on; in fact when Beattie set up the hospital she actually had to make due with no hot water for some time.
"They had an elevator, but they weren't allowed to use it because it used electricity, so they could only use it in emergencies. So if the food was cooked on the lower level the nurses had to carry the trays and everything up to the second and third levels," Dewar says.
"But not only the nurses cooked the food. They fed the patients. They cleaned the wards. They cleaned the floors. They made the beds. They even had to stoke the furnace. There was nobody there. These hospitals were totally staffed by student nurses."
This changed with time, but one thing that was slow to change was the fact that for a woman to be a nurse she could not be married. That rule didn't change until the 1960s.
With the onset of the baby boom era in the late 1940s, the first P.C. Hospital was swamped.
"The wards were filled. The hallways were filled. So they needed a bigger and better hospital," Wright says.
The second P.C. Hospital was built on Beattie Avenue in 1951 and for its day was, as Wright wrote in This Caring Place, "the undisputed queen of Island health-care facilities" and included things like an air-conditioned nursery and operating rooms, soundproof hallways and an emergency power plant capable of taking over the entire hospital workload in the event of a blackout.
"It truly was a gem. It was the best hospital on the Island in 1951 without a doubt," he adds.
When the second P.C. Hospital was built, a new nurses' residence was built next door. That hospital was eventually expanded from an L-shaped hospital to an H-shaped building.
The Island's three schools of nursing were phased out in 1971. In 1969, the new Prince Edward Island School of Nursing had been established in Charlottetown to replace the three former schools. That program ceased with the graduation of the final class of students in June 1994.
The hospital on Beattie Street was replaced in 2004 by the present 110-bed facility located on a 27-acre property on Roy Boates Avenue in the city's north end. It was the first hospital on P.E.I. to offer an ambulatory care unit.
